The Yellow Claw, Sax Rohmer [top 100 novels of all time .TXT] 📗

tone? You say 'she is undressed!' as though I were responsible for the poor soul's condition!”

“On the contrary, Leroux!” retorted Exel, standing very upright, and staring through his monocle; “on the contrary, YOU misconstrue ME! I did not intend to imply—to insinuate—”

“My dear Exel!” broke in Dr. Cumberly—“Leroux is perfectly well aware that you intended nothing unkindly. But the poor chap, quite naturally, is distraught at the moment. You MUST understand that, man!”

“I understand; and I am sorry,” said Exel, casting a sidelong glance at the body. “Of course, it is a delicate subject. No doubt Leroux can explain.”...

“Damn your explanation!” shrieked Leroux hysterically. “I CANNOT explain! If I could explain, I”...

“Leroux!” said Cumberly, placing his arm paternally about the shaking man—“you are such a nervous subject. DO make an effort, old fellow. Pull yourself together. Exel does not know the circumstances—”

“I am curious to learn them,” said the M. P. icily.

Leroux was about to launch some angry retort, but Cumberly forced him into the chesterfield, and crossing to a bureau, poured out a stiff peg of brandy from a decanter which stood there. Leroux sank upon the chesterfield, rubbing his fingers up and down his palms with a curious nervous movement and glancing at the dead woman, and at Exel, alternately, in a mechanical, regular fashion, pathetic to behold.

Mr. Exel, tapping his boot with the head of his inverted cane, was staring fixedly at the doctor.

“Here you are, Leroux,” said Cumberly; “drink this up, and let us arrange our facts in decent order before we—”

“Phone for the police?” concluded Exel, his gaze upon the last speaker.

Leroux drank the brandy at a gulp and put down the glass upon a little persian coffee table with a hand which he had somehow contrived to steady.

“You are keen on the official forms, Exel?” he said, with a wry smile. “Please accept my apology for my recent—er—outburst, but picture this thing happening in your place!”

“I cannot,” declared Exel, bluntly.

“You lack imagination,” said Cumberly. “Take a whisky and soda, and help me to search the flat.”

“Search the flat!”

The physician raised a forefinger, forensically.

“Since you, Exel, if not actually in the building, must certainly have been within sight of the street entrance at the moment of the crime, and since Leroux and I descended the stair and met you on the landing, it is reasonable to suppose that the assassin can only be in one place: HERE!”

“HERE!” cried Exel and Leroux, together.

“Did you see anyone leave the lower hall as you entered?”

“No one; emphatically, there was no one there!”

“Then I am right.”

“Good God!” whispered Exel, glancing about him, with a new, and keen apprehensiveness.

“Take your drink,” concluded Cumberly, “and join me in my search.”

“Thanks,” replied Exel, nervously proffering a cigar-case; “but I won't drink.”

“As you wish,” said the doctor, who thus, in his masterful way, acted the host; “and I won't smoke. But do you light up.”

“Later,” muttered Exel; “later. Let us search, first.”

Leroux stood up; Cumberly forced him back.

“Stay where you are, Leroux; it is elementary strategy to operate from a fixed base. This study shall be the base. Ready, Exel?”

Exel nodded, and the search commenced. Leroux sat rigidly upon the settee, his hands resting upon his knees, watching and listening. Save for the merry ticking of the table-clock, and the movements of the searchers from room to room, nothing disturbed the silence. From the table, and that which lay near to it, he kept his gaze obstinately averted.

Five or six minutes passed in this fashion, Leroux expecting each to bring a sudden outcry. He was disappointed. The searchers returned, Exel noticeably holding himself aloof and Cumberly very stern.

Exel, a cigar between his teeth, walked to the writing-table, carefully circling around the dreadful obstacle which lay in his path, to help himself to a match. As he stooped to do so, he perceived that in the closed right hand of the dead woman was a torn scrap of paper.

“Leroux! Cumberly!” he exclaimed; “come here!”

He pointed with the match as Cumberly hurriedly crossed to his side. Leroux, inert, remained where he sat, but watched with haggard eyes. Dr. Cumberly bent down and sought to detach the paper from the grip of the poor cold fingers, without tearing it. Finally he contrived to release the fragment, and, perceiving it to bear some written words, he spread it out beneath the lamp, on the table, and eagerly scanned it, lowering his massive gray head close to the writing.

He inhaled, sibilantly.

“Do you see, Exel?” he jerked—for Exel was bending over his shoulder.

“I do—but I don't understand.”

“What is it?” came hollowly from Leroux.

“It is the bottom part of an unfinished note,” said Cumberly, slowly. “It is written shakily in a woman's hand, and it reads:—'Your wife'”...

Leroux sprang to his feet and crossed the room in three strides.

“Wife!” he muttered. His voice seemed to be choked in his throat; “my wife! It says something about my wife?”

“It says,” resumed the doctor, quietly, “'your wife.' Then there's a piece torn out, and the two words 'Mr. King.' No stop follows, and the line is evidently incomplete.”

“My wife!” mumbled Leroux, staring unseeingly at the fragment of paper. “MY WIFE! MR. KING! Oh! God! I shall go mad!”

“Sit down!” snapped Dr. Cumberly, turning to him; “damn it, Leroux, you are worse than a woman!”

In a manner almost childlike, the novelist obeyed the will of the stronger man, throwing himself into an armchair, and burying his face in his hands.

“My wife!” he kept muttering—“my wife!”...

Exel and the doctor stood staring at one another; when suddenly, from outside the flat, came a metallic clattering, followed by a little suppressed cry. Helen Cumberly, in daintiest deshabille, appeared in the lobby, carrying, in one hand, a chafing-dish, and, in the other, the lid. As she advanced toward the study, from whence she had heard her father's voice:—

“Why, Mr. Leroux!” she cried, “I shall CERTAINLY report you to Mira, now! You have not even touched the omelette!”

“Good God! Cumberly! stop her!” muttered Exel, uneasily. “The door was not latched!”...